EQ & EQII: Many F2P Restrictions to Be LiftedMar 7th, 2013 at 12:44 PM by Cyliena

Several of the restrictions on Free and Silver memberships will be removed.

A big announcement from SOE today: many of the free-to-play restrictions will be lifted soon on EverQuest and EverQuest II Free and Silver membership accounts. Here's a look at the changes F2P players can soon enjoy.

As of mid-next week, we're going to be removing the following free-to-play restrictions in EverQuest and EverQuest II. Free and Silver players will now have access to all of the following options:

We are opening up ALL CLASSES.*

We are opening up ALL RACES. **

All bag slots are unlocked.

All players can now use the shared bank slots.

The quest journal restrictions are lifted entirely. Quest away!

Additionally, EverQuest is allowing all players to send delivery parcels! (This change is for a game-specific change in EQ, so it doesn't happen in EQII.)

Comments

I am usually very negative in my posts when it comes to SOE but i have to say i am very surprised that they are going to do this and that it is a very nice change. Since the game went the f2p model i made 2 new characters on 2 separate accounts to box more. Made both of them erudite wizard. I am happy with my 2 nukers now sitting at lvl 89 but i really wanted to replace one of them with a drakkin bard. I was not going to pay for that though. Now i will be able to start up that bard once the change goes into effect.

With Silver and F2P, regarding bank slots, do you still have them for storing extra stuff? If so, is it limited to a certain number of bags that be stored there?

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 9:37pm by fluticazone

For Silver, all 24 bank slots are available, and there are no bag restrictions that I noticed. No shared bank slots, but that appears to be changing soon, so no difference from Gold once that takes effect.

For inventory slots, 6 slots are available. No top level slot is available to store just one item. It's like the slot doesn't exist. But no restrictions on bag sizes for the slots you do have. Again, this is going away with the changes just announced, so Silver/F2P will be indistinguishable from Gold, as far as item storage in inventory and bank are concerned.

With Silver and F2P, regarding bank slots, do you still have them for storing extra stuff? If so, is it limited to a certain number of bags that be stored there?

Edited, Mar 7th 2013 9:37pm by fluticazone

For Silver, all 24 bank slots are available, and there are no bag restrictions that I noticed. No shared bank slots, but that appears to be changing soon, so no difference from Gold once that takes effect.

For inventory slots, 6 slots are available. No top level slot is available to store just one item. It's like the slot doesn't exist. But no restrictions on bag sizes for the slots you do have. Again, this is going away with the changes just announced, so Silver/F2P will be indistinguishable from Gold, as far as item storage in inventory and bank are concerned.

Tat

Thank you Tat and what timing! Last week, I spent numerous hours loading goods into my houses, selling off deluxe toolboxes that once held those goods, until all my bank slots were empty. Then I also cleared away the extra 4 spots, leaving 6 bag slots for each character's remaining bags. Then I thought that it would be nice if SOE would bring back those lovely 24 to 30+ slot containers only available at certain times in the EQ marketplace?

The greatest loss to me was time, plat, not so much (around 300pp down the drain). It's my own fault, for the most part, but really, I wish more time had went into laying out all facets of the Silver restrictions. Maybe, there could be a new Everquest forum category for this subject.

1. Unlimited amounts of in game money (with Silver & F2P you are limited to carrying 500pp per level: Level 20 can only have 10,000pp).

2. Being able to place items in the guild hall. Personally, I'm turning my secondary acct. to Silver and that means that my Wizard can't port peeps to the guild hall. Bummer.

3. If starting a new character, you can start up in alternate home towns, not just Crescent Reach. I don't know about you, but I dislike not having a choice.

4. Lack of advertisement. I guess I won't know what it looks like until I actually go Silver.

5. In-game support. I might not petition the GMs in game as much as I used to, but when I did, it was almost worth it just to have that sort of piece of mind.

I've gotta say though, having the shared bank does help, not to mention being able to send parcels. Imagine, if you will, that you allowed your house to lapse because you didn't log that character in the last 3 months. All the stuff ends up in eviction crates, INCLUDING anything your friend(s) would have placed there in the past. How they would end up with your eviction crates seemed unlikely.

personally i think placing an item in guild hall is something i would like to see the ftp people get over something like race class restriction. i think some of the things we pay for as gold members should not be given away. but something that annoys me is to be grouping with a wizard or druid (if they purchased the class) to find out they cant port me or others in the group to our anchors because of the restriction. gold members lose out in a situation like that. but they give them our other gold benefits which doesnt make sense to me. soe if you want to give gold benefits away let the ftp people place an anchor so they can port us gold members when we group with them.

1. Unlimited amounts of in game money (with Silver & F2P you are limited to carrying 500pp per level: Level 20 can only have 10,000pp).

2. Being able to place items in the guild hall. Personally, I'm turning my secondary acct. to Silver and that means that my Wizard can't port peeps to the guild hall. Bummer.

3. If starting a new character, you can start up in alternate home towns, not just Crescent Reach. I don't know about you, but I dislike not having a choice.

4. Lack of advertisement. I guess I won't know what it looks like until I actually go Silver.

OK, here we go:

1 - They removed this last month. There are no more plat caps for F2P or Silver accounts.

2 - Not sure where you got this. I bought a guild hall in January on my Silver account, and have placed tons of items there. No idea if it was different before, but never saw this mentioned in a patch note since I've been back (~5 months). Edit: to be clear, the char that bought the guild hall is a druid, on a Silver account. He has placed an anchor in there, and ports group mates into the guild hall daily. Zero issues with this.

3 - Haven't started a new char in years, so no idea about that.

4 - For Silver accounts, you get 1 pop-up in game, about 3-5 minutes after you log in. One click dismisses it. Then when you log out, your browser opens to a web page advertising the benefits of Gold. On a scale of 1-100, I'd rate the annoyance of these as about a 5 or a 6. Not very annoying at all.

- AA's are still capped without a Gold membership (or SC unlocker, not very cost-efficient) [/i]

Well, the efficiency really depends on how fast you gain AA's (not just play-style related, but also time related), and how much you pay for SC.

In the last two months, I've made a bit over 1000 AAs on two toons that are Silver (different accounts), and over 1000 AA to begin with. So those 1000 AAs have cost 10 x 250 = 2500 SC. Since I've only reloaded SC when it's triple weekends, and used WalMart bonus cards, those 2500 SC have cost me $6.25.

So that's $6.25 over 2 months, spread over 2 accounts. Way more cost efficient than paying for Gold. At least as far as AAs go.

There are still advantages to Gold. The really huge two reasons are Journeyman mercs and prestige gear. But these are only a factor at higher levels. Now that these chars are approaching 90, and have gotten the quests done for higher tier mercs, I'll likely go Gold with them anyway. But it's nice that Sony's unlocking some of these other items.

Tat

PS - yeah, access to a trader is huge, too. But that's what the third account is for :)

Yea it really depends which is the better deal for AA unlocks... but for me I can get alot more AA's on my alts when I go gold - it is way more cost efficient for me than spending SC on them. Mainly because many of my alts are way past the limit anyway, so I'd have to buy alot of AA unlockers just to get to where I can even earn any more AA's. Also, I have lots of alts so paying for more AA's would get very costly.

My bard had 8,000 AA when RoF came out. I would have had to spend $70 to even hit the 8k amount, and then I still wouldn't be able to buy more AA until I bought more unlockers... that's why I just went gold on her and worked on her AA

Good points all. Although, the $70 would only be $17.50 on a triple SC weekend with bonus cards :)

And to fair, in your favor, I also had to pay for 1000 AA worth of unlockers, because I was already slightly over the limit. So my total cost was 20 x 250 = 5000 SC, so $12.50. But yes, if you're way over the 1000 AA limit, then the unlockers are not a good option.

And also wanted to mention, saw your sig..... reminded me of a link I found last week that pointed to a post on your guild website. It was the first time I'd seen the guild name. Being from Chicago, my first thought was that you guys were from Wisconsin (Packer Fan!). I got a good laugh when I saw how the name came about. Nice website :)

Good points all. Although, the $70 would only be $17.50 on a triple SC weekend with bonus cards :)

And to fair, in your favor, I also had to pay for 1000 AA worth of unlockers, because I was already slightly over the limit. So my total cost was 20 x 250 = 5000 SC, so $12.50. But yes, if you're way over the 1000 AA limit, then the unlockers are not a good option.

And also wanted to mention, saw your sig..... reminded me of a link I found last week that pointed to a post on your guild website. It was the first time I'd seen the guild name. Being from Chicago, my first thought was that you guys were from Wisconsin (Packer Fan!). I got a good laugh when I saw how the name came about. Nice website :)

Tat

Haha, yea I get that all the time... are you a Packers fan lol And no not really into sports :)

Good summary of the EverQuest F2P restrictions still in place. :) Since this article is on both our EQ and EQ2 sites, here's a summary of restrictions that will still be in place on EverQuest II:

Free has 2 character slots; Silver has 4 character slots. You can purchase unlimited character slot unlockers on the Marketplace.

The AA slider will still be locked to 50%.

Can't send mail (Silver can receive)

Free is limited to Adept spells; Silver is limited to Expert spells. If you had further upgrades from being Gold they should not be downgraded, and of course you can unlock upgrades with tokens from the Marketplace.

While these are great changes, I think there should be some compensation for people who purchases "unlocks" in the past few months... I just opened up all my bags slots and tasks expansions on EQ1....

Maybe try contacting Customer Service and see what their stance is on it? If you do and get a response, let us know.

I do hope they refund anyone who has purchased within a certain time window--sounds like that would be fair to me. Either way though, these are a good move in the right direction and definitely allows more flexibility for Free/Silver accounts.